Illustrator Roland Topor on our inner complexity and the reasons why we do things
Roland Topor was a 20th century French multi-talented artist, but he is most well-known for his work as an illustrator. During his prolific career, he worked with Fellini, Werner Herzog, Roman Polanski among other,. His drawings are surrealist, dark, humorous, detailed and poetic. Visually appealing, they’re often also disturbing. He portrays human condition through striking pictures that look deceitfully simple.
This year, the French National Library in Paris stages a retrospective exhibition of his work to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his death. At the end of a rich exhibition, the visitor can watch a recorded interview of Roland Topor. It was filmed in the 1980s, when you could smoke the cigar and have a drink in front of the camera, and you could spend several seconds thinking before actually answering the question.
I really liked this interview for its advocacy of complexity in any individual life. Topor first talks about how he sees himself as a complex human being, as opposed to a fixed and determined person. He then talks in a playful way about the process of creation of his drawing — far from the…
